


you can hear it in the silence

by psikeval



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 03:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3234266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikeval/pseuds/psikeval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once he decides to say it, it's hard for Dorian to think of anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can hear it in the silence

**Author's Note:**

> this fic brought to you by bull/dorian romance cards and a really astounding lack of self-control

Once he decides to say it, it's hard for Dorian to think of anything else.

Bull is bent over the basin, splashing water on his face, naked in a careless way that will most likely always make Dorian’s mouth water, but today he's hardly noticed. Preoccupied, which is a shame. It's really too good a sight to waste.

Across the room, Bull towels his face dry and replaces his eyepatch, while Dorian sits at the edge of the bed, stubbornly resolved and afraid beyond reason, because what he's felt for longer than he cares to examine has had the _gall_ to shift from feeling into solid, immutable fact. It was true last night, trussed up and all but insensate with pleasure, and it was still true this morning when he woke up half-smothered by Bull's arm. He's starting to think, with a distant sense of what should be horror, that it might be true for a great deal longer than that.

“Right,” he says, and looks down at his own hand, crumpling the sheet in his fist with slow mesmerizing precision. “Bull?”

“Yeah?”

It still isn’t too late. He could let it slip out in an argument, or in bed, or when Bull comes back to Skyhold with another ragged scar and no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. There’ll be a hundred things to prompt it, excuses for being honest that won’t force Dorian to break the silence all on his own, simply because he must.

“I love you.”

There cannot possibly be any air in his lungs — in the room — he is emptied, with nothing to draw on but courage and little enough of that. Of all the foolish, reckless ideas…

Bull moves so quietly across the room to kneel between Dorian’s legs.

“Don’t say it back,” he blurts out, panicked, hands on Bull’s shoulders. He knows, or thinks he knows, Bull isn’t the sort who’d reply in kind just to spare his feelings, but still Dorian thinks the slightest hesitation, the barest hint of insincerity, would be worse than never hearing it at all.

“Okay.” Bull’s fingers trace gently over the backs of his knees. “Then what?”

“Just,” He was wrong before, clearly; an empty man’s eyes wouldn’t feel so full, his throat would not contain a single sob to swallow back. Dorian looks into Bull’s eye, scrapes up a small pleading smile. “Tell me it’s all right.”

“Hey,” Bull says softly, scooping him closer, and Dorian gasps like a man gutted. He buries his face in the warmth of Bulls’ neck and lets himself be soothed by it, by the size of Bull’s hands stroking his back until he’s no longer trembling.

Bull tips him back onto the bed, so gently, kissing his lips and jaw and throat, the twin lines of his collarbones, murmuring Qunlat into Dorian’s skin—and then he stops, and in the silence something vital seems to snap. A low, helpless sound escapes Bull just before he presses his lips down hard over Dorian’s heart and lingers, his entire massive body curled around that point of contact, breathing unsteadily through his nose.

When Bull finally moves, the kisses trailed down Dorian’s ribs are carefully light, like an apology—as well they should be, Dorian tells himself, shoving at Bull’s shoulders with hands that shake.

“Useless beast,” he says when his voice can be trusted, “I told you not to say it back.”

“Yeah, well, you know,” Bull lifts his head, looks at him with a tenderness that’s hard to bear and shrugs with his horns, one end tipped up. “I’m a bad listener.”


End file.
